Short stories with cats set in mainly in TOKYO
Novel set in MANCHURIA and JAPAN
7th February 2024
The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo, novel set in Manchuria and Japan.
“…A lifetime of coincidence is spinning them together, or perhaps it’s the fate of a fox god that has reunited them.”
The Fox Wife is the third of Yangsze Choo’s novels. It’s set in Manchuria, China, at the turn of the twentieth century. The Qing dynasty has ruled there for 350 years but the old ways are crumbling – and foxes are about!
The story is told through the eyes of the Fox Wife, whose child was murdered. She has abandoned all she holds dear to set out on a quest to avenge the child’s death. She is able to travel around from town to town in the guise of a servant while she hunts down Bektu Nikan, the photographer who she suspects killed her child. She puts her highly developed senses to work outwitting anyone who crosses her.
Meanwhile, a young woman is found frozen to death in an alleyway. Experienced private investigator Bao is tasked with discovering whether the death is natural or the work of foxes that are said to haunt the city at night. In his childhood, Bao and his friend Tagtaa were fascinated by the fox god. It has left him with a special gift – one that is the perfect tool for detectives – the ability to detect when someone is lying.
The Fox Wife is a wonderful blend of historical fiction and a detective story with Chinese culture, tradition and superstition. The richness of the detail makes the settings gloriously real, from the bitter cold of the Manchurian winter to the smell of the traditional Chinese medicines, and from the harsh lives of Chinese peasants to the exquisite luxury of the wealthy. Although it is set against the turmoil of the recent Japanese-Manchurian conflict, the novel is much more to do with the everyday lives of Chinese and Japanese people.
Coincidentally, the vogue for photography is central to this novel, as it is to The Beasts of Paris by Stef Penney, reviewed on TripFiction recently.
It’s currently very popular for reviewers to equate any detective novel with Agatha Christie and there are elements of that here. But there is also a richness and other worldliness about The Fox Wife that sets it in a league of its own. Neither is it just a retelling of traditional tales: it’s inventive, tender and exciting. I heartily recommend it.
Sue for the TripFiction Team
Catch our reviewer Sue on Twitter @SueKelsoRyan and on IG @SueKelosRyan
Catch the author on Twitter X @yangszechoo
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